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His Grace the Duke's Majestic Land Forces, Rightful and Sole Remnant of the Golden Imperial Army
His Grace the Duke's Majestic Land Forces The Imperial Grand Duchy of Far Valyrius commands vast legions of soldiers, armored walkers, cloned soldier drones, and alien and mercenary auxiliaries. Duchy Infantry Infantry Levies and Colonial Forces Desc: Conscripted troops with basic training and anti-infantry weapons. Often highly inexperienced, infantry levies generally tend to have poor morale and very basic equipment, faults made up for only by the sheer weight of their numbers. At their best, battle-hardened infantry levies can act as dependable light infantry, armed with field-modified standard issue weapons or superior scavenged weaponry. The Duchy freely used conscripts from its colonial holdings during the Derelict War, but the Duchy's ruling aristocracy is highly resistant to the institution of conscription within the Archenar System. Duchy Regulars Desc: Well drilled and disciplined, Duchy Regulars are the backbone of the Ducal Army. Armed with an assortment of anti-infantry and anti-vehicle weaponry, Regulars are numerous, easily replaced, professional and dependable soldiers that are useful in a variety of combat situations. His Grace's Imperial Grenadiers Desc: Grenadiers are a large standing force of veteran Duchy Regulars, outfitted with archeo-tech carapace armor and superior weaponry. They are used as medium infantry. Many Grenadier formations are composed of battle-hardened Duchy loyalists and former colonial forces from the Colchis League, the Contested Systems of the Derelict War, who chose to remain with the Duchy after the war ended and were absorbed into the Duchy regular army. Ducal Knights Desc: Power-armored infantry, Imperial Knights are high-born soldiers able to pay for and maintain their own armor. They are all purpose heavy troops with anti-infantry and anti-tank capabilities. Imperial Knights are more numerous than, but generally compare unfavorably to, other nations' power-armored formations thanks to their now largely outmoded armor models. Unlike many nations who deploy power armored divisions in a first-strike offensive role, Duchy commanders tend to use them largely in wave-assault, defensive, policing, counter-insurgent and support roles. They are often called in to crush rebellions and other poorly equipped forces, or to serve as a backbone to potentially unreliable mercenary troops. Old Guard Desc: An elite formation within the Duchy Army, the Old Guard are nominally the protectors of the Archduke. In reality, they are a 500,000 man force of well trained, well e quipped soldiers who- in addition to guarding the Archduke and the Valyrian Diet- often serve the Ducal Army as an elite fighting force in all combat scenarios. The Old Guard are equipped with highly sophisticated archeo-tech carapice armor with an inbuilt personal energy shield, capable of shrugging off a significant amount of damage before depletion. They are often armed with energy halberds, swords, and archeo-tech plasma weapons. Ducal Cavalry Forces Ducal Techno-Hussars Desc: Mounted on cyber-steed archeo-constructions which are slaved to their rider's neuro-uplink, the Techno-Hussars serve as a light reconaissance and skirmishing force. Their cyber-mounts are able to traverse even the most difficult terrain at speed. Ducal Techno-Cuirassiers Desc: The cavalryman is never out of date! Heavily armored soldiers armed with plasma rifles and powerlances who ride augemented cyborg-steeds that are slower but more heavily armored than the metallic constructions used by their Hussar brethren, the techno-cuirassiers are meant to flank enemy formations and charge, for the Duke! For Glory! In practice, Techno-cuirassiers serve as light medium to close range vehicular units. His Grace the Duke's Combat-Drone Formations Flathead Drone Desc: Flatheads, so named because of their sloping brows, are bulk produced clones of limited intelligence. Heavily armored and cybernetically augmented by the Grand Duchy, they serve as canon fodder and basic infantry. Flatheads never retreat, never surrender, and never stop coming. Flathead Tank Hunter Desc: Bulk clones outfitted with heavy anti-tank weaponry, Tank Hunters serve within almost all formations of Duchy infantry as vehicle-killers, often mind-slaved to a platoon officer. Flathead Heavy Desc: Bulk clones outfitted to serve as heavy weapons platforms, heavies come in anti-personnel, anti-air, close combat, and anti-vehicle varieties. They are heavily armored and, like Tank Hunters, serve within almost all formations of Duchy infantry, often mind-slaved to a platoon officer. The Faceless Desc: A highly specialized varient of the Flathead soldier-clone, the Faceless are cybernetically augmented and biologically modified vat-grown human clones designed for close combat and stealth operations such as reconaissance, assassination, sabatoge, kidnapping, etc. While the Faceless possess highly limited sentience, they are implanted with advanced archeo-tech cognition engines which allow them a high level of adaptability, combat skill, and situation-assessment. They are especially known for their ability to clamber, insect like, over almost any surface. What the Faceless lack in creativity, imagination and improvisational skill, they more than make up for in obedience, relentlessness, numbers, and replacability. The Faceless are used extensively in combat zones, as assassins targeting the enemy command structure, or in swarms to overwhelm entrenched positions. His Grace the Duke's Armored Vehicular Units Crustacea-Class Armored Battle Walker, aka "Crab-Tanks" Desc. The workhorse of the Duchy armored divisions, the Crustacea class is heavily armored and armed, and is capable of traversing even the most rugged terrain at speed. Along with its main armament, a medium Rad-Cannon, the Crustacea Class is armed with several anti-infantry weapons and an energy shield capable of absorbing moderate anti-armor fire. Thymopides-Class Medium Artillery Walker Desc. Designed to provide Duchy forces with mobile, medium ranged artillery support, the Thymopides-class was utilized to great effect in the Derelict Wars as a close combat tank-destroyer, where it benefits from its heavily armored carapice. The Thymopides-class' main armament are its twin Heavy Rad-Cannons, and it sports a moderately powerful personal energy shield. Cancroid Class Infantry Suppression Walker Desc: A light walker-tank armed with twin flamthrowers and a head-mounted rapid-fire heavy laser cannon, the cancroid-class is designed to operate in an anti-infantry role and possesses a light energy shield. Homarus-Class Shield Projection Walker Desc: One of the most important vehicles in the Duchy army, the Homarus-Class is a all terrain walker mounted with an advanced archeo-tech energy shielding array, which enables it to project an umbrella of shielding over a large area of the battlefield. These shields are very resiliant to enemy fire, and are used by Duchy commanders to protect artillery emplacements, defensive positions, as well as advances in the enemy line of fire. The shield array can be overloaded by massive direct fire, however, and will take time to recharge. Likewise, the Homarus walker is slow moving, and thus any shield-protected advance at enemy positions will inevitably be a slow one. The Homarus-Class sports a medium Anti-Aircraft turret atop its shield projector array, as well as several secondary anti personnel weapons. Homarus-Class Heavy Anti-Aircraft Walker, "Quad Lobster" Desc: A variant of the Homarus-Class walker chasis that trades in its shield projection array for a heavy anti-air/anti-ballistic missile energy turret. Acanthacaris-Class Heavy Artillery "Artillery Spider" Desc: Primary long-distance artillery walker of the Grand Duchy, technologically simple and easy to mass-produce, the Acanthacaris class is one of the few innovative, non-archeo-tech based weapons systems used by the Duchy. As a consequence, the Artillery Spider is vastly less sophisticated than the artillery systems of most other nations, but is manufactured and used in high numbers. Lobs solid high explosive or tactical nuclear munitions at targets with relatively low accuracy. Phoberus-Class Super Heavy Artillery Walker "Seige Spider" Desc: Almost as common as the Acanthacaris-Class, the Phoberus-Class serves a seige unit in the Duchy army and is technologically simplistic compared with many of the ordinance delivery systems of other nations, but no less deadly for that. Varients can be outfitted to fire solid or energy munitions. Category:The Duchy